When you think about being social, do you think about hanging out and chatting with friends? Sending a text or posting to Facebook? Humans socialize in many ways. Social behavior is not limited to humans, however. Many animals are social.

Social Behavior

Why is animal communication important? Without it, animals would not be able to live together in groups. Animals that live in groups with other members of their species are called
social animals
. Social animals include many species of insects, birds, and mammals. Specific examples of social animals are ants, bees, crows, wolves, and humans. To live together with one another, these animals must be able to share information.

Highly Social Animals

Some species of animals are very social. In these species, members of the group depend completely on one another. Different animals within the group have different jobs. Therefore, group members must work together for the good of all. Most species of ants and bees are highly social animals.

Ants live together in large groups called colonies (
Figure
below
). A colony may have millions of ants. All of the ants in the colony work together as a single unit. Each ant has a specific job. Most of the ants are workers. Their job is to build and repair the colony’s nest. Worker ants also leave the nest to find food for themselves and other colony members. The workers care for the young as well. Other ants in the colony are soldiers. They defend the colony against predators. Each colony also has a queen. Her only job is to lay eggs. She may lay millions of eggs each month. A few ants in the colony are called drones. They are the only male ants in the colony. Their job is to mate with the queen.

The ants in this picture belong to the same colony. They have left the colony’s nest to search for food.

Honeybees and bumblebees also live in colonies (
Figure
below
). Each bee in the colony has a particular job. Most of the bees are workers. Young worker bees clean the colony’s hive and feed the young. Older worker bees build the waxy honeycomb or guard the hive. The oldest workers leave the hive to find food. Each colony usually has one queen that lays eggs. The colony also has a small number of male drones. They mate with the queen.

All the honeybees in this colony work together. Each bee has a certain job to perform. Notice the queen to the left. She is the largest bee in the colony.

Cooperation

Ants, bees, and other social animals must cooperate.
Cooperation
means working together with others. Members of the group may cooperate by sharing food. They may also cooperate by defending each other. Look at the ants pictured below (
Figure
below
). They show very clearly why cooperation is important. A single ant would not be able to carry this large bee back to the nest to feed the other ants. With cooperation, the job is easy.

These ants are cooperating. By working together, they are able to move this much larger insect prey back to their nest. At the nest, they will share the bee with other ants that do not leave the nest.

Animals in many other species cooperate. For example, lions live in groups called prides (
Figure
below
). All the lions in the pride cooperate. Male lions work together to defend the other lions in the pride. Female lions work together to hunt. Then, they share the meat with other pride members. Another example is meerkats. Meerkats are small mammals that live in Africa. They also live in groups and cooperate with one another. For example, young female meerkats act as babysitters. They take care of the baby meerkats while their parents are away looking for food.

Members of this lion pride work together. Males cooperate by defending the pride. Females cooperate by hunting and sharing the food.

Summary

Social animals, or animals that live in groups with other members of their species, include ants, bees, crows, wolves, and humans.